


Fathom

by dotfic



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Banter, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-20
Updated: 2010-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It won't stop raining, and Danny's had it up to here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathom

**Author's Note:**

> Set at some point after 1x09. Heaps of thanks to anniehow and ariadnes_string for the betaing and suggestions. Written for my kissbingo table, prompt _other: to shut them up._

Hawaii has a sad excuse for winter -- it's not cold, for one thing, and it's far too wet. Danny misses actual winter that knows how to behave properly. Snow falling thick, everything weirdly hushed, ponds and rivers frozen into white streaks. He even misses the toxic gray slush that winds up lining the busy streets and parking lots every year, mountains of it that don't fully vanish until March or April.

Also, cold. Not sixty-two degrees and suddenly people are grabbing for sweaters like it's a new ice age, but real cold, where you can see your breath and it's eighteen degrees outside. Okay, never mind that Danny used to grumble about the cold a lot back home, to the point where Rachel wrote the phone number for the local news station down for him and stuck it with a magnet to the fridge so he could call the meteorologist and complain.

It's been raining for seven days straight, he has no dry socks left, he's ruined another pair of loafers, and Steve is being even more annoying than usual.

"An umbrella? Seriously?" Steve has that smirk on his face, the one that translates to All Mainlanders Are Crazy.

It's a compact umbrella. It's not as if Danny's pulling out some huge tent-like thing, for god's sake.

"It's raining." Droplets cover the car windows, making it hard to see. Danny opens his door a crack and peers out to assess the long, one-story building where their first suspect might be.

"Yeah, I know it's raining." Steve steps out of the car. He hasn't even bothered with a windbreaker or jacket of any kind, doesn't seem to care if he gets soaked through for the third time that day.

But Danny's underwear chafes. He's had enough. He opens the umbrella and steps out of the car while Steve looks heavenward like he's the most long-suffering soul to ever walk the earth.

"There's nothing wrong with keeping sensibly dry."

"Except when it's about eight yards here from the car to the door." Steve puts on his Everyone Else but Me is a Wimp face. Pursed lips and eyebrows going up like, you've got to be kidding me. The rain's dampening his t-shirt as they walk fast towards the building, and Danny has to run a little to keep up, holding the umbrella over his head.

He actually is starting to feel a little stupid. "Next you're going to tell me no one in Hawaii uses umbrellas."

"No. Why would I say that?"

"Because we always have conversations that start that way. You tell me how I'm doing it wrong, and no one here does it like that, and I tell you I like it that way."

"Is that like when you tell me how everyone here is doing it wrong?" Steve says, patiently for Steve. "People use umbrellas in Hawaii," he adds, as if he's a little bit sorry he ever said anything about the umbrella.

"No kidding!"

"Look," Steve says, as they reach the breezeway, his shirt damp enough now that it's starting to stick to his skin. "It could be worse."

"It's been raining for seven days without a break." Danny snaps the umbrella closed and gets splattered with water drops for his trouble. "How could it be worse?"

"You could live in Hilo."

"What? Why? What about Hilo is worse than this?"

"It has the highest amount of rainfall in the US."

"Oh, okay. Well, thank you. I'm very glad I don't live in Hilo, thank you for that useless piece of trivia."

"You're welcome."

Steve has the most obnoxious grin Danny's ever seen and for a second he thinks about punching him. For the hell of it.

"What?" Steve glances sideways at him, hand raised to knock on the door.

"Nothing." The rain's pattering on the breezeway roof. It's kind of soothing. But his skin itches and his socks are damp.

*

They're still arguing when they get back to HQ.

"Maybe if you'd turned left when I told you to turn left--" Steve seems to be all tense muscle and jabbing fingers right now.

Danny actually has to step back to keep from getting one of those fingers hard in the chest, which might hurt, knowing Steve. "You said turn right."

Scrubbing a hand through his damp hair as they walk into the main room, Steve puts on his Aneurysm Face like it's going to stay there for life. The rain streaks over the big windows, the shadow of the drops speckling Steve's damp shirt and his face and a neck.

Kono's at the table, head bent over several paper files, with more information on screen. Her jaw looks a little tight, hair pulled up in a ponytail.

"I said left," Steve mutters.

"No you didn't--"

"Danny. This. Left." Steve grips Danny's shoulder, squeezes tight and releases. "This. Right." He does the same thing to the other shoulder.

Danny shoves Steve in the chest, making him stumble back a few steps. "Knock it off, wiseass. I know my right from my left."

For a second there everything goes really dangerous, the muscles in Steve's shoulders tensing, and Danny wonders that he let it all get to him this much, and he wonders if he has a death wish.

Kono's head goes up. "Hey! Working here."

"Sorry," Danny tells her, then realizes Steve's striding out of the room, into the hall.

It seems like Steve expects him to follow, so he does.

"What's up with you?"

"With me?" Even in the back hallway at HQ, far from the windows, Danny still hears that damned rain.

He's not sure he likes this conversation or the way Steve's looking at him, a whiff of concern and disapproval and amusement all at once.

"Yeah. You seem a little on edge." Steve's standing as if he has every intention of blocking Danny if he tries to leave.

"I'm fine."

"You're fine?"

"I'm fine."

Danny moves as if to walk past Steve and he was spot-on right, because Steve moves too. He really enjoys the way Steve jerks to a halt mid-movement, confused, as Danny turns and walks away in the other direction.

"Fine," Steve's voice snaps after him.

"Fine!" Danny isn't in any way shape or form yelling. He isn't.

Stupid rain.

*

The bullet snaps into the tree about half an inch from Steve's head. That they're getting shot at wouldn't be news, exactly. Since partnering with Steve, Danny has gotten used to this kind of insanity, and besides, Danny was shot at in New Jersey. Once in a while the bullets hit him, but not too often. Danny's pretty sure those odds have changed now that he's in Hawaii.

What's news is that after they've nailed the suspect, Steve is still bleeding from a cut over his eye, the blood mixing with the rain so it streaks down the side of Steve's face, and he's holding his left shoulder a little too stiffly. Danny's not squeamish about blood. He knows the water is making it look worse than it is. When Steve tackled the guy, they hit a palm tree. Danny's never actually slammed his body into a palm tree, but he's pretty sure if he ever had occasion to, it would be unpleasant and extremely painful.

But it's bothering the crap out of him that Steve barely seems to notice there's blood all over his face.

Also, it's still raining.

The suspect's handcuffed, lying face-down on the ground spitting obscenities, blond spiky hair looking just as furious, muscular arms beneath a tank top. Steve digs his knee into his back, keeping him from squirming too much, while Danny picks up the guy's gun. Steve's acting as if he doesn't have what looks like a pint of blood all over the side of his face. Asshole.

"Jesus Christ." Danny keeps his gun trained on the guy even though he's cuffed and Steve seems to think he has everything under control -- but it's been a day, and Danny's not taking chances.

It's raining so hard, swear to God, Danny feels as if he can hardly see. Chin appears next to him, solid and calm, it could rain for forty days and Chin wouldn't blink, Danny's pretty sure.

"HPD's on its way," Chin says. "Kono's already caught his partner." There's a brush of pride in his voice. "She's interviewing him now. Hey," he steps over to Steve, holding out something -- a towel. "You're bleeding."

Steve sighs as if he doesn't have time for this but he'll do it because it's Chin, takes the towel with his right hand. "Thanks," he says.

"Might help if you hold it against the cut." Danny moves closer.

"Shut up." But Steve does it, keeping his knee jammed against the back of their suspect.

The white towel begins to stain red. "Maybe we should, y'know, have someone look at that," Danny offers.

"I told you, it's a cut." There's a hard snap at the edge of Steve's voice.

"But it's bleeding a lot -- "

"Head wounds always bleed a lot and look worse than they are. There are a lot of capillaries in the head."

"McGarrett," Chin says, and Danny's learned what that tone means.

The really amazing part is how Steve nods. "Yeah."

Before long, the suspect is bundled into the back of a squad car and Steve sits still long enough to grudgingly submit to the attentions of an EMT who bandages him up, sheltered from the rain on the back step of the ambulance. Chin rides off with the suspect while Danny waits for Steve, his shirt, tie, and pants soaked through.

Another pair of loafers ruined. Screw Hawaii.

"You happy now?" Steve says as the EMT finishes. He gives Danny the Raised Eyebrows Look, a subset of the Will You Let It Go series.

"Very."

He doesn't know why, but it bugs the heck out of him that Steve listened to Chin and not him. It shouldn't -- they've known each other since high school, and Chin knew Steve's dad.

The ambulance pulls away, they start walking towards Danny's car, which Danny now remembers was parked all the way at the bottom of this stupid hill. They walk down together, Danny's shoes squelching at every step.

When they're in the car, Danny doesn't start the engine right away. His fingers toy with the keychain in the ignition while the rain batters against the roof and drops pebble onto the windows, blurring the greens, reds, and yellows of the foliage and small houses nearby. Everything's so bright in Hawaii, even when it rains for two weeks.

He glances over at Steve, and can't seem to stop staring at his hands. One palm rests on the dashboard, fingers spread. There's a small cut on his knuckles. His other rests on his thigh, fingers curled. That's the side with the injured shoulder. There's a little bit of red staining the bandage on his face; Danny looks away.

His tie is too tight around his neck, so Danny loosens it, then notices Steve watching him.

Danny's skin itches. He tells himself it's because his clothes are wet.

*

The day doesn't start with yelling. It starts with working. Then with Danny asking Steve how his head is and Steve saying fine.

Danny shoots his mouth off because Steve keeps touching his hand to the bandage and wincing, but pretending not to wince, and he's still favoring his shoulder. It's the pretending not to wince that tears it.

"You're fine? Good, because I somehow got the idea you might be working on a headache there or something. The doctor said you didn't have a concussion but there might be a headache anyway. Of course I know you would never _ever_ have a headache and completely deny you have a headache or that your shoulder hurts. You would never do something idiotic like go on working the rest of the day until finally you gave in and _condescend_ to pop a painkiller, without it even occurring to you to take a rest like an ordinary mortal."

Once the words are out, Danny's no longer sure that speech was such a good idea.

"Actually, I went to bed early last night. I don't have a headache but the cut hurts a little." Steve's voice is too quiet.

"Oh." Danny wonders if he heard correctly. Maybe Steve had more of a healthy sense of self-preservation than Danny thought. Or he didn't mind admitting it to Danny, which makes Danny feel even sorrier about the special delivery of sarcasm.

Meanwhile Steve's face of Relentless Stone Wall sets in; and that's it, it's done.

The day goes worse from there -- taut silence in the car and words of single syllables as they work the case. Danny thinks things might be looking up when finally, finally, it stops raining and sun breaks through the clouds and the brightest goddamned rainbow he's ever seen arches over the hills and down into the ocean. Rainbows are one of the things Danny actually likes about Hawaii, not as high on the list as it being where Grace lives, but up there.

But then he and Steve get caught on some procedural point on the way back to the car. It's really not Danny's fault it turns into an argument, really it's not. Well, mostly not. Things should be done a certain way, and Steve's way sometimes works but Danny's pretty sure if he doesn't speak up about doing it another way, Steve will barrel on doing it the McGarrett way with blinkers on and that can only end in horrible injuries, an internal investigation, and possibly people getting shot. People whose first name starts with "D."

All of which he yells at Steve, who stops, turns, and starts arguing back at Danny, and then shouting. They're in what feels like the middle of absolutely nowhere, greenery thick as jungle surrounding a house that they thought would give them a lead but turns out to have been deserted for months. The rainbow's still in the sky, the air smells like clean rain and sand and some kind of flowers, and Danny's sick of it. He's tired of paradise and something's gnawing away at his stomach while usually, if he's being completely honest, he enjoys these word battles with Steve. It'd be too quiet (and lonely) without them. That stupid bandage on Steve's head, pure white today without a hint of red, makes him feel even more like an ass for yelling but it happens anyway, a momentum neither of them can stop.

"...and that's not even -- that's not even a valid point, McGarrett. Jesus. You're driving me absolutely nuts!" The words come out a lot louder than he intended. He must've scared a bird because there's a flap of wings, something bright blue and yellow in the corner of his eye flying upwards.

Steve's jaw is tight but he takes a deep breath, turns away from Danny, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "You know, we never talked about what was up with you." His voice has gone kind of quiet.

"You're right, we didn't," Danny says, and now he doesn't feel like yelling at all. "Are you saying this is all me?"

"No. No!" Steve turns back and his hands are out of his pockets now. He holds them up in an almost pleading way. "It just...it feels like things have been kind of weird between us for a little while."

The panic that flashes through Danny startles him.

"You want a different partner?"

"What? No." Steve pokes the toe of his boot into the wet earth. He braces one hand against the wall of the house, which might've once been painted bright yellow. "That's not what I meant. The work, the work is fine, I just--"

"Because if this isn't working for you then it isn't, and hey, that's how it goes sometimes, right? So we can make changes if necessary. Not that I...I don't want to but maybe you do if this isn't working and we need to--"

The muscles in Steve's arm tense, and then he takes his hand away from the wall. "Shut up, Danny." He moves closer, and Danny wonders why his voice is so low and why that makes his pulse stutter for a beat.

"We have different styles, I know that, and I can be a pain in the butt, God knows Rachel's told me that enough times, and maybe I've given the impression I think your way is bad but it's not, but sometimes it's--"

"Danny..."

"But I can leave the task force. Transfer to something else. Have to stay in Hawaii, Grace is here and..." In fact there's a lot more in Hawaii now than Grace. There's Chin and Kono, there's the work that they're all doing. "I'm sure we'll see each other around, interdepartmental cooperation and all that..."

"Danny, shut the hell up."

Steve's hands are tight on Danny's shoulders. He pushes until Danny's back hits the wall and then there's a second where Danny's trying to decide if he should object to this, if he does object to this, realizes that he doesn't, wonders why he doesn't. The heat of Steve's body and the moisture evaporating off his clothes in the hot sun is making Danny forget what words he intended to say next. Danny's always had words, lots of them, he likes words, all kinds of words, but right now his mouth's gone dry.

He tries. Uselessly blurts, "Is this..." before Steve's mouth is warm over his, fingers twisting in Danny's shirt. It seems right to put his palm at the nape of Steve's neck, where his skin is hot, damp with a mix of sweat and the last traces of rain, and kiss him back hard. Danny's heart's going so fast and loud he's sure the whole island hears it.

Pulling away, because they do need to breath again sometime, Steve looks at him with an expression Danny doesn't have a name for yet, wouldn't know what to call it if he tried.

He doesn't need or want a name for it, he realizes, as Steve's mouth curves in a slow smile.

~end


End file.
